Related papers: Light Sailboats: Laser driven autonomous microrobo…
This paper presents a novel approach to launch single microparticles at high velocities under low vacuum conditions. In an all-optical table-top method, microparticles with sizes ranging from a few microns to tens of microns are accelerated…
Systems with competing attractive and repulsive interactions have a tendency to condense into droplets. This is the case for water in a sink, liquid helium and dipolar atomic gases. Here, we consider a photon fluid which is formed in the…
Active colloidal microparticles require reliable actuation to sustain directed motion. Light-based propulsion is particularly attractive as it provides persistent energy supply and enables direct spatiotemporal control. Here, we introduce…
When a floating body is internally or externally vibrated, its self-generated wavefield can lead to steady propulsion along the interface. In this article, we review several related and recently discovered systems that leverage this…
Actuation remains a signifcant challenge in soft robotics. Actuation by light has important advantages: objects can be actuated from a distance, distinct frequencies can be used to actuate and control distinct modes with minimal…
Accurate and autonomous transportation of micro-objects and biological cells can enable significant advances in a wide variety of research disciplines. Here, we present a novel, vision-based, model-free microrobotic pushing algorithm for…
We show that the optical properties of an oblique layered system with two kinds of isotropic materials can be described using the concept of transformation media as long as the thickness of the layers is much smaller than the wavelength.…
We consider the motion of a light sail that is accelerated by a powerful laser beam. We derive the equations of motion for two proof-of-concept sail designs with damped internal degrees of freedom. Using linear stability analysis we show…
We propose a framework for designing coherent optical environments that enable versatile and dynamic optical manipulation. In contrast to conventional material-based near-field platforms, our approach employs a structured coherent light…
Researchers and robotic development groups have recently started paying special attention to autonomous mobile robot navigation in indoor environments using vision sensors. The required data is provided for robot navigation and object…
We experimentally demonstrate orbiting of isotropic, dielectric microparticles around an optical nanofiber that guides elliptically polarized fundamental modes. The driving transverse radiation force appears in the evanescent…
Microorganisms are able to overcome the thermal randomness of their surroundings by harvesting energy to navigate in viscous fluid environments. In a similar manner, synthetic colloidal microswimmers are capable of mimicking complex…
Building intelligent autonomous systems at any scale is challenging. The sensing and computation constraints of a microrobot platform make the problems harder. We present improvements to learning-based methods for on-board learning of…
Optical forces allow manipulation of small particles and control of nanophotonic structures with light beams. Here, we describe a counter-intuitive lateral optical force acting on particles placed above a substrate, under uniform plane wave…
Polymer micro- and nano-fibers, made of organic light-emitting materials with optical gain, show interesting lasing properties. Fibers with diameters from few tens of nm to few microns can be fabricated by electrospinning, a method based on…
In most macro-scale robotics systems , propulsion and controls are enabled through a physical tether or complex on-board electronics and batteries. A tether simplifies the design process but limits the range of motion of the robot, while…
Space exploration is of paramount importance to advancing fundamental science and providing global services, such as navigation and communications. However, today's space missions are hindered by limitations of existing propulsion…
Microrobots hold promise for applications ranging from targeted delivery to enhanced mixing at the microscale. However, current fabrication techniques suffer from limited throughput and material selection. Here, we demonstrate a versatile…
There are few industries which use manually controlled robots for carrying material and this cannot be used all the time in all the places. So, it is very tranquil to have robots which can follow a specific human by following the unique…
Active systems contain self-propelled particles and can spontaneously self-organize into patterns making them attractive candidates for the self-assembly of smart soft materials. One key limitation of our present understanding of these…